- guardian.co.uk, Friday June 23 2000 00.00 BST
Caroline Sullivan is a Guardian feature writer and pop critic. Bye Bye Baby: My Tragic Love Affair with the Bay City Rollers is published by Bloomsbury.
Buy Bye Bye Baby at Amazon.co.uk
1. Billion Dollar Babies by Bob Greene
On tour with Alice Cooper in 1973, by a bemused Chicago newspaperjournalist. Hilarious analysis of spoilt rock-star lifestyle makes it one of the best on-the-road books ever.
2. STP: A Journey Through America with the Rolling Stones by Robert Greenfield
The Stones on their famously excessive 1972 tour. Greenfield had complete access and doesn't hesitate to reveal Jagger and friends in all their whingeing glory. Great sense of time and place, too.
3. Powder by Kevin Sampson
Novel by the former manager of The Farm concerning a fictitious Liverpool band's rise and fall. Lots of really gross sex and drugs details: a salutary tale.
4. Groupie by Jenny Fabian, Johnny Byrne and Jonathon Green
Cultish swinging 60s novel (recently republished) of a London pop fan who's not satisfied with just an autograph. Fabian was a real-life groupie, and got to know some of the era's stars very well indeed. Half the fun is working out who's who behind the pseudonyms.
5. I'm With the Band by Pamela Des Barres
Des Barres is a California version of Fabian - except that she names names and rates performance (Jimmy Page gets five stars). Well-written, too, with a great sense of humour.
6. Everything: A Book About the Manic Street Preachers by Simon Price
The definitive story of the most passionately loved band of the 90s, with lots of hitherto unpublished information about Richey Edwards's disappearance. The best rock biography of the decade.
7. Diary of a Rock'n'Roll Star by Ian Hunter
Mott the Hoople's lead singer is no Dostoevsky, but his story of a 1972 US tour is straight from the poodle-permed horse's mouth.
8. The Rolling Stone Album Guide ed Anthony Decurtis
Acerbic, colloquial dissertations on virtually every album ever released make this worth reading in its own right.
9. Starlust by Fred and Judy Vermorel
This husband and wife pop-culture team analyse fan worship through interviews, diaries and letters. There are some strange people out there, and they all love Nick Heyward of Haircut 100...
10. I Hate Rock' n' Roll by Tony Tyler
A former NME hack who, as the title says, hates rock 'n' roll. Excrutiatingly funny, and probably out of print due to its sacrilegous theme.
